VOY Interview with Vincent Moon on Youth- Growth, Evolution, and the Future

Earlier this week, I had the distinct privilege of posing some very specific and completely non associated questions at Vincent Moon. Who is Vincent Moon? Accomplished producer, director, and writer traveling throughout the world, Mr. Moon knows no boundary to his chosen mediums. In this article we discussed the future of the world, how youth populations should continue to grow, barriers to this growth, steps to take for becoming the person you want to be, and the idea of merging art and human rights.

N: What were you like as a kid? What motivated you, what inspired you, who inspired you?

V: I was at the same time hyperactive and very lonely. It took me my whole teenage years to get over it, and finally get interested in other people when i turned 18, more or less. Before that, i was extremely shy.

N: What were the biggest breaks you’ve had to achieve what you’ve achieved?

V: Deciding, around the age of 19-20, to change myself and become another person. To do that, i spent all my time in cinemas, in concerts, in exhibitions, trying to learn everything about everybody, filling myself with knowledge, until that would be enough to become someone. It was a kinda weird process, very violent in a way, and very exciting too. The power of will on yourself, being able to change who you are into a better person, more confident especially.

N: What are the biggest challenges you’ve had to go through?

V: Getting over that sickness of not believing in myself. I am still going thru it though ;)

N: What message would you have for a young person with a dream but not sure how to realize it?

V: Believe in it, don’t listen to anybody else than yourself. and do it seriously, but for the fun of it.

N:While traveling or filming, have you had any experiences with particular youth that have affected you in strong ways that you made reconsider or rethink previous concepts or thoughts?

V: All the time in a way, as witnessing young energies around the world is the most inspiring thing ever. I am constantly looking for places where people keep such a desire, a wish to make things happen. West European ways of dealing with life and creation has this kind of sadness at the core of it, as if nothing is really possible anymore, as if everything has been done before. While the excitement in South America, in Middle East, to make things happen, its full of life.

N: Is there a way to merge human rights issues with culture/art that might be more conducive for bringing youth into Voices of Youth?

V: Well, to me I don’t see much difference in between those two aspects. One important thing i keep in mind is to never make any difference in between actions, not putting them in genres, but putting them on the same level and being able to make connections between them. There is not much difference to me in between a film being made and a school being built. The links between those movements, those things in motion, are more important than their differences. You have to open your eyes a bit more, that’s it, to think about it as a whole, as a constant harmony to find. To find this harmony, people use different tools, but the goal is the same.

N: Will the two concepts of human rights and art ever merge into one?

V: This is where we are now.

N: What is your dream for the young people growing up today? Is it different depending on if they’re growing up in the developing world vs the developed?

V: Sure the differences are very important and i don’t see them much disappearing, but more evolving into a multitude of worlds. The key thing is the education we can give towards new technologies, the use that young people can make of it, far from any control by any governments or stuff like that. The freedom at the core of the internet is something that has been hidden way too much in the past ten years. If we can teach all the possible uses of such a tool to young people around the world, we can definitely create a new society. But it’s a danger for the governments we live with now, so it's a constant struggle to not obey and live with our own rules, much more egalitarian ones.

N: How do you think youth can play a larger role in their own government’s decision making? Do you think art can play a large factor, and if so, how?

V: Sure art as it is being made nowadays (back to a certain amateur idea of it, an everyday action, a more socially engaged position, the end of the idea of the 'artist') is starting to play a big role on another scale. The importance is to break this idea of a world for art, a world for politics etc... but to face every issues with all those tools in hands, consider them as powerful as each other. As for governments, I don’t believe much in their actions just by witnessing how politics turned out in the past 50 years. I think though that actions can be made far from them, without their help, just with the collaborative creative action of people around the world, everywhere on many smaller scales.

N: What do you think the world will look like in 20 years?

V: Pretty crazy, with lots of movements of ideas from a culture to another, lots of isolated violence, lots of powerful creative actions made on little levels, a multitude of circles, of communities, of people living the way they want to live because they understood the power of new technologies, of people living under repression because they never received that knowledge... a very complex world, of course, but its’ a good thing after all.

N: What is your dream for the world?

V: To find again a certain harmony with the planet and with other cultures, a harmony which has been endangered a lot in the past decades. Not only a more ecological world, but something way bigger, which includes all aspects of life

N: What is your dream for the youth?

V: To be the ones who realize they have to make things to change this planet and make it again a place in harmony. Not wait for others to make it, just go and do and then think about it later. MAKE.
And the education we give them, the advices we have towards their uses of technologies, and the confidence we can carry towards them to make them create things locally on their own levels, is of deep importance.

N: Do you have any future plans or aspirations to work with young people in a direct way? And if so, how could you envision this working…?

V: I am now developing various ideas of workshops around the world, made over a week or two, engaging mostly young populations in their own locality, to organize musical events, art events, and experiment on the documentation we make of it. Projects involving lots of various people also on many levels, working with older generations too in this, to create links and question knowledge they can carry. It's coming soon.
Vincent will soon be exploring Southeast Asia...